


High and Tight

by gonfalonier



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-16
Updated: 2014-08-16
Packaged: 2018-02-13 09:57:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2146452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gonfalonier/pseuds/gonfalonier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A slice-of-life fic from the early days: Sam has been cutting Dean's hair for years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	High and Tight

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this fic four years ago, gosh. It's set when Sam's in his early teens. I haven't watched this show in a few years, so maybe there was a whole hair-cutting arc that I missed, and if this story contradicts that, then I apologize.

"I think it's sweet, he does this for you" Darla Jean drawls before she takes another drag off her cigarette. She's leaning against the doorjamb of their motel room, loose and rangy in the shortest shorts Sam's ever seen in his life. The door is open, letting the freezing cold air of the room blast out into the relentlessly filthy Deep South August heat. Dean's fidgeting in a squat desk chair they've dragged out onto the pavement. His bare chest and shoulders are covered with a towel. Sam is standing, slouched, behind him with a comb and a sharp pair of sewing scissors.

"You shouldn't be smoking here," Sam admonishes Darla Jean. "Dad'll think it's one of us, and he'll have both our asses."

Dean pulls away from the chair, his bare back noisily unsticking itself from the vinyl, and reaches up to snatch the cigarette from his girlfriend's fingers. He closes his eyes and takes a long drag, lets it out through the long o of his lips, then licks his teeth and winks lasciviously at Darla Jean. "There," he says, looking back over his shoulder, "now it'll just be my ass, Sammy." He leans back against the chair again and repositions the towel. Tilting his head back, he glances impatiently upside down at his little brother. "Now are we gonna do this or what? I got places to go."

"No, you don't, you big faker," Darla Jean laughs and drags the cigarette down to the filter. She tosses it aside and stretches her arms long and lazy over her head. Sam tries to be discreet as he steals a few glances at the lean, tan expanse of her abdomen exposed by the stretch. Dean doesn't even try, just grins and mutters, "Just a little higher, sugar," earning him a playful glare from the girl.

"Hold _still_ ," Sam whines. "You were the one who wanted this, now quit moving around and let me cut your stupid, dumb hair." He can hear Dean roll his eyes, but at least the fidgeting stops. Sam takes up the scissors, combs out a damp sheaf of Dean's hair, and begins to cut.

\--

_1993_

It's two days after Dean's 14th birthday. He and Sammy are holed up in a crusty motel room in Shreveport -- "The grossest room ever," Sam declares -- while their father's trekking through the swamps in search of information. Sam's not even ten years old, his hair shaggy and constantly falling in his eyes. 

Dean provides, meagerly, while John's away, stealing only what he has to, charming his way into everything else. There's a sweet old homo couple in the room four doors down who are happy to give the two boys the big bag of potato chips out of their car. Sam and Dean eat the whole thing in one night while Dean gives his little brother his nightly lesson in cardsharping.

Dean, for his part, doesn't give half a damn about Sam's hair. He knows his own is getting longer, and he doesn't like it, but what can he do? They can't afford a barber, and dad's idea of a trim is taking out the little electric razor he uses on his beard and turning Dean into a new recruit in the Clown Army. But Sam's starting to get sick of constantly palming his hair away from his face -- it leaves his bangs greasy, makes the skin on his forehead break out. So that night, after the potato chips are gone and Dean's half-comatose on the bed with his glazed eyes on the TV, Sam sneaks over to his brother's duffel to dig through. He finds the point of the scissors with the pad of his ring finger and hisses as it smarts. They're antique sewing scissors, small, sharp as hell, and Dean uses them for whatever -- cutting tags off for shoplifting; snipping thread as he mends Sam's shirts and his own; trimming the fishing line he used for stitches whenever either of them suffers a heavy injury (which is far more often than most other kids). 

Sam slips the scissors into his pocket and goes into the bathroom. "Don't come in here," he mutters to Dean, which is what his big brother says every time _he_ disappears into the bathroom for longer than usual. Dean just nods, not even looking away from the slasher movie on the screen, and Sammy disappears behind the door.

There's a small makeup mirror on a stand on the counter, and Sam moves it so he can see himself in close detail. He's suddenly nervous, the way he felt the first time he tried the diving board, his skin prickling and his eyes inexplicably tearing up. He inhales long and wide through his nose and sighs out the breath silently, letting a tear trickle out since Dean isn't in here to make fun of him. Once he feels his hands are steady, under control, he pulls away the top layer of his bangs between his first two fingers (the way he'd seen the barber do for his dad a little over a month ago) and starts snipping across, neat and even. 

For the next twenty minutes, he doesn't think, doesn't really focus, just lets his hands do all the work. He trims and slices, sometimes just barely in centimeters, the prickly ends piling up in the sink. By the time he decides he's finished, his head feels so light he has to move it around a little to get used to the sensation. He's cut out around his ears, and he doesn't like the way it looks, thinks he'll grow that part back. The rest looks all right. He smooths it down with the sides of his hands, looking for any places that might be uneven. He smiles a little and makes a few more snips.

As he cleans up the clippings in the sink, he finds himself smiling even more. His whole body feels as light as his head. He feels accomplished, like he's finally done something entirely on his own for the very first time. If he's honest with himself, that really is the case.

Sink tidy and wiped down, scissors swiped clean with a square of TP, he opens the door and steps back out into the room. The light from the bathroom hits Dean and jerks him awake. "Jesus, Sammy, you were in there forever. You fall in or something?" Sam just laughs and shakes his head, a small shower of clippings raining down over his shoulders. He brushes them off, then hops up on the bed, grinning and leaning against his brother.

Dean rubs his eyes a little and sits up straight, turning on the lamp on his side of the bed. "Did you...fuckin'...Sammy, did you cut your hair in there?" Sam nods, beaming uncontrollably, and Dean just shakes his head. "Dad's gonna kill you, you know that, right?"

"Why? What'd I do?"

"You coulda hurt yourself! Cut your ear off or something!"

"Bullshit." Sam covers his mouth once the word is out, his eyes wide, and then they both fall apart laughing. 

"Dammit, Sam, you gotta find a cooler way to rebel. Cutting your hair, little man? Really? You couldn't, like, hotwire a car? Go on a joyride?"

Sam rolls his eyes epically and half-glares at his brother. "Dean. I'm only _ten_."

"Nine and a half."

"Whatever. My feet probably wouldn't even reach the pedals. And anyway, I wasn't trying to rebel. I was just tired of, you know, hair in my face. And always looking the same."

"What if I punched you in the face?" Dean snickers and elbows him. "You'd look different then." And then he cups Sam's chin and turns the kid's head from one side to the other, examining his hair. "'S not bad, though. You did an okay job, I guess. Still got both your ears, for now." He ruffles Sam's hair and then runs his fingers through his own. "Mine's gettin' a little girly. Maybe I oughtta let you at it, huh?"

\--

Darla Jean's leaned up against the hood of a truck parked in front of their room -- not her car, of course, and not Dean's -- just watching the brothers as Sam finishes up his task, skimming his hand over Dean's natural short spikes. 

"You get the back the way I like it?" Dean knocks his brother's hand away and runs his own palm over his head and the back of his neck.

"Don't I always?"

"How long've you been doing this for him, Sam?" Darla Jean asks from behind her bottle of Coke.

"Like, five years now?"

"You're good, you know, you should do it professionally."

Dean snorts out a laugh at that, stands up and shakes off the towel, letting the clippings fly away on the hot, gritty breeze. "Yeah, Sammy, you should tell dad you wanna be a hairdresser. That'd go over _great_."

Sam just rolls his eyes and smacks Dean in the back of the head -- he's tall enough to do that now. "I won't be a hairdresser," he mumbles. 

"Well," Darla Jean sets her bottle on the curb and slinks up to Dean, sliding one hand through his freshly trimmed hair, the other down his still-bare back. "I think it looks good." She presses a brazen kiss to Dean's lips.

"Gross," Sam mutters, wrinkling his nose. "Have fun, you guys. I'm going back inside."

Dean laughs and kisses his girl again, grinning. "We always have fun, Sammy. Don't we, baby?"

Sam sees Dean's hand slide around Darla Jean's waist, sees her eyes widen, hears her squeal and giggle. He picks the towel up off the pavement, tugs the chair back into the room, and pointedly shuts the door.


End file.
